The Hotel Avocado audiobook vs book: which should you choose?

Short answer: for the The Hotel Avocado audiobook vs book choice, we say listen on Audible (100% confidence, clear cut). Bob Mortimer reads the audiobook with Sally Phillips, Paul Whitehouse and Julie Maisey, and it runs 9 hrs 15 mins. No maps, footnotes or print-only devices were found. The separate viewpoints are voiced by different narrators, and nothing confirmed points to print.

Confidence 100%, which puts it in the clear cut band. Bands run from close call at 50 to 64, through leaning at 65 to 79 and clear at 80 to 94, up to clear cut at 95 and above.

What this book actually is

The Hotel Avocado is Bob Mortimer's second Gary Thorn novel, following on from The Satsuma Complex, which won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction in 2023. It picks up not long after that book ends, moving the action from south-east London to Brighton, and has the same loose, rambling comic-crime style that made the first book a hit. It was published in hardback by Simon & Schuster in August 2024 and in paperback in May 2025.

The story is told across chapters that shift between several first-person narrators, chiefly Gary himself, his girlfriend Emily, and a character called Grace. The opening chapter belongs to an unidentified voice, later revealed to be Gary's friend and agent Kevin, who deliberately starts the story near its end before handing over to Gary. As in the first book, which used a talking squirrel, at least one chapter here is narrated by a talking pigeon, including a closing chapter in which the pigeon ties off loose ends.

The case for reading it

Two things push towards print, and both are real. The cast of narrators is large to keep track of: Gary, Emily, Grace, Kevin and a pigeon are among them. Several reader reviews note that the shifting perspectives introduce some repetition, with events occasionally retold from a different character's point of view. In print, you can at least skim past that repetition if you spot it coming. The other case for print is the prose itself. Mortimer's absurdist "Bobisms," his invented similes and deadpan asides, are the kind of sentences some readers will want to stop and reread, which is easier to do in print than when the narration keeps moving.

The case for listening to it

Three things push the other way, and together they outweigh the case for print. First, Bob Mortimer narrates his own chapters as Gary, confirmed directly by his own social media post about recording the book with Paul Whitehouse and Sally Phillips. Second, the many narrators could be confusing in print, but they help in the audiobook. Mortimer, Phillips, Whitehouse and Maisey each voice separate characters, so a change of voice tells you the perspective has switched, rather than a chapter heading you might skim past. Reviewers who listened specifically flag that this works well. Third, the comedy suits being performed. Mortimer's timing, his digressions and asides, and the general deadpan absurdity of the writing are the sort of humour that depends on how it is delivered, not just on the words.

The audiobook in detail

The production uses several narrators rather than a single reader doing voices. It is not a fully dramatised production with sound effects either. It sits somewhere between the two, with different named performers voicing different characters across chapters. Bob Mortimer takes Gary's sections, Sally Phillips returns as Emily having voiced the character in the first book's audio too, and Paul Whitehouse and Julie Maisey cover other principal characters. It runs 9 hours 15 minutes, published by Simon & Schuster Audio UK in 2024, the same year as the hardback. No formal audio awards or bestseller-chart recognition for this specific title were confirmed in research for this page, though the book sits within a series that has already won major recognition in print. Nothing in the source material suggests you lose anything by choosing audio over print. No maps, footnotes, illustrations or printed formatting tricks were identified for this book.

Who should ignore this verdict

Readers who specifically want to underline or reread Mortimer's stranger sentences, the kind of invented similes and absurdist asides that reward a second look, may still prefer print despite everything above. The same goes for anyone who finds a shifting cast of narrators genuinely hard to track regardless of format. The repetition some reviewers noted is in both editions. In print a chapter heading marks each change of narrator, and in the audiobook a change of voice does.

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Related verdicts

Same shelf

The Thursday Murder Club

Another cosy, comic British crime novel, decided for print.

Opposite verdict

Circe

A literary novel told in one continuous voice, which suits immersive listening in a very different way from this book's short comic chapters.

Also multi-voice

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Another audiobook built around named performers rather than a single anonymous narrator.

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